The Royals and the Right's Money Lust

And so the new heir has been anointed by his mother's amniotic fluid, and all around this happy, constitutionally significant, and above all, deeply human event has been the suffocating royalist craziness that in recent years has enjoyed a phenomenal resurgence in the UK. Dewy-eyed folk from all kinds of social backgrounds have merrily joined in the fuzzy zeitgeist that accompanies most births - though usually on a far smaller scale. Of course, as royalty is the grandest tradition of the UK, those arch-traditionalists on the right of the political spectrum have been the most vociferous in their praise of Prince William and his rags-to-riches fairytale wife, Kate.

The Daily Mail, Tele(Tory)graph and Express are well known for their adulation of the monarchy, with Princess Diana (for example) having been repeatedly sainted as a martyr to the cruel vagaries of the Windsors and the hounding of the press. No; the irony is not lost on me either. 

A little reflection on the behaviour of the Right does shine a stark light on the hypocrisy of the campaign against an over-generous welfare state and the vitriol that is directed towards immigrants and immigration.

Immigrant family

The heredity of the Royal family is one of its defining features, and is consequently very well detailed, and widely known. Queen Elizabeth II is descended from the union between English Queen Victoria, and German Prince Albert. The family carried its patrilineal surname of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha until the First World War, when George V adopted Windsor as the family name, against a backdrop of anti-German sentiment. Our present Queen Elizabeth II is, of course, married to Greek Prince Phillip. 

Immigration is thus at the centre of our monarchy, but anti-immigrant sentiment is at a 3-year high, with 57% of respondents to a recent YouGov poll saying that immigration is one of the most important issues facing the country [1]. The right-wing press carry scare stories about immigration on a daily basis, and the Tories have had their support heavily dented by the stronger anti-immigration rhetoric of UKIP (though this is now fading). It is unsurprising then that the public are grossly misinformed about immigration, believing, for example, that 1 in 4 Britons are Muslim [2]. Political affiliation with the right, royal approval and opposition to immigration are well-aligned [3], with royal support far greater among Tory voters.

Welfare scroungers

What then about the public money that the Queen enjoys as part of her Sovereign Support Grant of around £35 million? Quite why a woman who has a net worth of around £350 million should need a 'support grant' is unclear, but the money comes from the Crown Estates, whose earnings from various properties and vast tracts of the countryside are paid directly to the Treasury. It is clear that the role of head of state doesn't require such enormous sums of money - the Presidency of Ireland costs a mere 100th of the cost of the UK's monarchy. Could there then be a more undeserving recipient of millions of pounds of the nation's money than an already fantastically wealthy woman who carries out a largely ceremonial function which, in the main, consists of the hardship of hosting delegations of foreign leaders at exquisitely catered dinners?

With 500,000 people depending on food banks, with tens of thousands forced out of their homes due to the withdrawal of housing benefits, with the slashing of income support for the disabled and unemployed, it is disheartening to find that support for the retraction of the welfare state in such a strong position. But strong it is, and while not confined to the political right, it is the monarchy-loving right that most strongly support it [4].

Underachieving

What about their academic merit? Well, the Windsors are hardly high academic achievers, with the Queen having no formal qualifications. Harry has only grades B and D at A level, and Anne shares this achievement with two A level grades. Charles at least studied at Trinity College Cambridge, and managed a 2:2 Bachelor of Arts, while Prince William seems the most capable of them all, holding a 2:1 in Geography from St Andrews. Most have had undistinguished military careers, with the exception of Anne and Edward, who quit his military training early and has filled his time dabbling in the entertainment industry since.

The Right preach a meritocracy - that success is the product of industry, and that financial security is not a right, but the fruit of productive endeavour. These, as you can see, are hardly attributes of the Royal family, but the Right daren't admit that success might come from anything other than the individual's honest effort.

Mammon

Why then are the Royals so popular? The fact appears to be that many in this country worship money; have enough of it, and you can be forgiven all sorts of morally dubious things. Those pesky bankers are generally forgiven for having betted and lost with the public's savings, but if you dare have a spare bedroom in your council house, be prepared to run for cover.

To the monarchist Right, it seems that you can be forgiven for being a work-shy, underachieving welfare-scrounger from immigrant stock, just as long as you're fabulously wealthy. 

[1]http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/05/08/immigration-concern-hits-three-year-high/

[2]http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3188/Perceptions-are-not-reality-the-top-10-we-get-wrong.aspx

[3]http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/op0kyy7ttc/YG-Archive-Royal-family-results-100613.pdf

[4]http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/5tdopkoktm/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-04-060113.pdf

Britain PLC

What am I? A minority of highly-paid, well-connected, highly-privileged and well educated bosses at the top; a middle-tier supporting and maintaining the hierarchy; and a mass of low-paid, underprivileged, workers, working long hours with little or no hope of promotion. I am not only a picture of many businesses, but also the right-wing’s dominant vision of Britain PLC.

The cultural war in America is well documented – that bloody battle between the socially-liberal Democratic (barely) left, and the deeply religious socially-conservative Republican right. But the economic strife racking Britain is engendering a similar, if not more subtle fight about the role and character of our government.

To the avaricious right, the nation is primarily a tool for generating wealth - a corporation guided by an elected board of directors sitting in Parliament. The country’s model of governance ought to follow the model set out by capitalist principles; slavish deference to the bottom line, and just enough investment in the workforce to keep them working. As Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office Minister said recently about the cuts to government spending:

"There's more to come. Frankly, even if it was the most efficient organisation in the world there would be more to come. The best organisations find efficiency savings every single year because that's just what you do. The best companies do this every year so there's definitely more to come and we are nowhere near the most efficient organisation in the world.”

In this view, human dignity is subservient to the finance department’s calculations. There is no basic, universal quality of life that can’t be eroded by the demands of the ledger. It is merely good fortune for the lowest-paid, sick and disabled, unskilled and underprivileged that Britain PLC is the seventh biggest corporation in the world. They enjoy the grace of a generous benefits scheme, but don’t really merit any of it, as those at the top do. The value of a life is inextricably tied to the contribution it makes to the coffers; the more you bring, the more you can take away.

We need another view.

It is an absurdly naive notion that poverty is merely a product of idleness, but listen for long enough to the right-wing’s mouthpieces and this is the only theory that is ever extended. The implication is that all you need to do to lift yourself from penury is to knuckle down and exert more effort. Never mind that there aren’t enough jobs - work harder! Never mind that you don’t have the requisite skills and training for most of the jobs available - work harder! Never mind that you’re chronically ill, disabled or a carer for one or more dependents - work harder!

Our nation – like any nation – will always, and must always have a workforce composed of workers that cover the entire spectrum of skilfulness. We can’t have a nation of 30 million doctors, lawyers and bankers; we need teachers, cleaners, factory workers, builders and road sweepers, and a good case could be made that the latter are more essential than the former! The idea that you are a more deserving citizen as a lawyer than a cleaner is pervasive, but should be discarded as an idea from a less civilized history of our nation. Not only that, but our nation – like any nation – will always and must always have citizens who aren’t able to work, through age, disability, sickness or responsibilities as carers. This mustn’t be seen as a consequence of some feebleness of spirit, but recognised as a basic fact of our humanity.

But more fundamentally than that, why should your job influence your entitlement to a dignified existence at all? Our government, as a democratically elected council of the populace – rather than merely arch patricians of our finances - should be defending and maintaining the right of every single citizen to a fair and dignified existence, irrespective of birth-right or job title. It is expensive to do so, but there is most certainly more than enough to go around. Our nation’s fabled wealth-creators will certainly need cajoling to loosen their grip, but their fists are filled with the capital that the real wealth-creators – the workers – have given over their lives to generating.

We are not a commodity, and in the search for the character of our nation we must give as strong a voice as we can to the idea that the demands of our humanity come before the health of our balance sheet. Compassion, dignity and respect can, and ought to be extended to every man, woman and child living on our shores.

A right Royal pay-rise

If there’s something that brings out the bonkers in large swathes of the British public, it’s not the four days of feeble sunshine we like to call summer, but Her Majesty the Queen and her expanding clan. The institution’s popularity is like a particularly stubborn dose of syphilis; a recurring fever that’s highly infectious, with a creeping madness that doesn’t shift in the face of the antibiotic of reason. Express any faintly treasonous sentiment or criticism, and you can expect a nation of beef eaters to come and drag you off to the tower.

Why on earth should anyone have any objection to handing over around £35 million of government money to a single family who already have a net worth of £359 million? What possible problem could someone have with Her Royal Highness being handed a pay-rise of 5%, while around 500,000 of her subjects are suffering the indignity of needing the services of food banks? After all, the most convincing reason to keep any constitutional arrangement must be the boost to tourism that it provides. The Presidency of the United States only survives because of the impressive sales of commemorative bumper stickers and gun holsters it engenders. The Irish Presidency costs a meagre 112 times less than our head of state, and clearly no-one flocks to Ireland to see His Excellency, opting instead to visit irrelevant gewgaws like Dublin, or enjoy the Republic’s fatuous natural beauty.

So let’s not forget the enormous magnets to foreign metal that the Royals provide to attractions like Buckingham Palace, even if it isn’t itself in the top 10 most visited historic sites in the UK, and the number one historic attraction – the Tower of London - only has historic associations with the Royals. Still, without the fabulously slim chance of catching a glimpse of the Queen in one of her regal pastel uniforms, clearly no tourist would ever dream of booking a train, plane or boat to visit our shores. And let’s also not forget, half of those shores and the seabed out to 12 miles is owned by the Crown Estates.

Besides being the lynchpin to the UK’s tourism industry, the Queen is also an essential rallying point for our armed forces, unlike the United States who have the largest and best equipped armed forces in the world. Meddle with the Windsors and watch our borders dissolve!

And what about all the good work this family does? Imagine those vast, unpopulated wastelands, filled with newly built shopping centres and other publicly funded projects made impassable by reams of uncut red ribbon. No sycophantic grins and snapping shutters there to justify the expense of chartered jets and Royal trains, for the sake of pulling back the curtains shielding commemorative plaques.

If you forget the cost of round the clock security, Royal travel and official visits - as the official figures do - then the Monarchy costs us a mere 53p each. This is 'good value for money', since none of us could hope to rattle around in over 21 palatial residences without being significantly inconvenienced by all those spare bedrooms. Thankfully, our notoriously frugal monarch has just enough company to stave off loneliness by keeping a slim household staff of 250.

The government is clear; the State needs to save money. It is therefore the apogee of sensibility to retract the Welfare State, freeze public pay-rises while inflation soars, and hand over more money to a single woman who already earns 1,362 times the average national wage. You may be struggling to buy bread, but at least you can fill your belly with the warming knowledge that an iniquitous tradition of inequality is being maintained for the good of the nation.

The evil of the government’s ‘hard-work’ trope.

In his 2013 budget speech on March the 20^th, George Osborne said “It's a historic achievement for this government and for hard working families across the country.” He was speaking of the government’s proud pledge to raise the personal allowance to £10,000, but his singling out of ‘hard working families’ was odd in that the allowance is, and has always been bestowed on any worker, irrespective of whether they are part of a family, and independently of how hard they work.

In an article written exclusively for the Daily Mail at the start of September in 2012 titled 'Hard work, moral good and no more dumbing down... It is time to stop the dithering that's holding Britain back', David Cameron was even more explicit in his endorsement of that most Protestant and Victorian of sensibilities, writing:

“... and all of this means a nation where we talk about the values that matter: that families are vital; that we each have responsibilities to fulfil; that doing an honest day’s work is a moral good that should be rewarded.”

These are of course fine examples of a political rhetoric that has been vigorously adopted by the Conservative party in recent years, but it is a monumental cipher and a distraction that is expertly designed to appeal to the Tory’s ageing and financially comfortable voter base. The essential evil of this tack – and I won’t shy away from that assessment – is that it aims to shift the moral responsibility of the economic downturn from those in government, to the populace. The implication is that if you disagree with the government’s economic stewardship, or if you find yourself worse-off financially as a consequence, you only have yourself to blame for not being industrious enough.

This is iniquitous nonsense.

Firstly, working harder will make little or no difference to the earnings of most of the population; salaries are simply not calculated that way. People are employed on the basis of the kind of skill that the employer requires, and in nearly all cases, a salary is decided before an employee has lifted a finger. Once employed, there may be a degree of opportunity for promotion with a concomitant increase in earnings, but in the majority of cases this involves taking on different responsibilities, rather than simply increasing how intensely a person works.

Secondly, ministers imply in a fabulously patronising way that socioeconomic status is directly and exclusively related to how hard you have worked in your life. Poor are you? Then you’ve been lazy. This is a perverse, reverse meritocracy, where wealth has become an automatic totem of a person’s moral and industrial excellence, rather than the former following from the latter. You don’t need to have much familiarity with sociological ideas to understand that some occupations are enormously demanding in a physical sense – mining, manual factory work etc. – but are paid poorly, while essentially all of the best paid jobs require no manual effort beyond pushing buttons and pulling levers. Lawyers and A&E doctors may work similar hours, but they do not command the same earnings, and it is extremely facile to find many more examples where there is a discontinuity between financial security and effort.

Finally, there are in reality only a fantastically small number of workers whose intensity of labour is directly connected to shaping the health of the economy, and these are in the main government officials and public servants – those who work at the Treasury for example, and those who work at the Bank of England. For the rest of us, we are hopelessly at the mercy of the inflation and taxation that ratchets up the prices we pay for goods and services. You can never leave your place of work if you like, but petrol prices will rocket just the same, and your salary will probably be unmoved.

This hard-work theme is another divisive PR campaign from a bulging Tory catalogue that is designed to unburden the state from the responsibility of caring for the most needy and underprivileged. If you can blame the plight of the poor on their own failings, then you can argue that they don’t deserve any help. The working classes may wither and die, Messrs. Cameron and Osborne, but the fault will be entirely yours.